The report, called "Anti-corruption in transition. A contribution to the policy debate," relies on the 1999 Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey conducted jointly by the World Bank and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
The survey lasted from March till September 1999 and consists of interviews with enterprise owners and senior managers of 3,600 companies in 22 transition countries, 132 of them in Estonia.
The World Bank has developed diagnostic tools, technical assistance, training programs and lending instruments targeted at reducing corruption since 1997.
Hellman said the purpose of the survey was to unbundle the concept of corruption in different transition countries in order to work out a better anti-corruption strategy. "We gave the companies voice to learn from their experience," said Hellman.
Siim Kallas, minister of economic affairs, said the report was originally revealed at the WTO summit in Prague this September, but was neither published nor discussed in Estonia.
"The most positive is that now we can see a real and accurate research on this fascinating topic, and use anti-corruption methodology developed by the World Bank," said Kallas.
He mentioned that Estonia looks good compared to other Eastern European transition countries.
In most of the transition countries the fusion of state and economy that characterized the communist system has been replaced by a new order. However, the separation of private and public interests has not been adequately defined in the new order. That is why corruption in the transition countries is developing new dimensions and posing new challenges, says the report.
According to the results of a Transparency International survey, the level of corruption in Estonia is among the lowest in the transition countries. Hungary and Slovenia show the best results.
Hellman said the matters of greatest concern for Estonia should be the transparency of political financing and political parties in particular.
"In the U.S., everyone has a right to know how much money Gore or Bush got from any of their supporters, and those numbers are even published in newspapers," said Hellman to illustrate the level of transparency needed.
After 10 years of transition, the technique of reforms is better known, but the possibility of backsliding always exists. Furthermore, it is getting increasingly more viable along with the development of economy, according to Hellman. "When the competition in the private sector gets more aggressive, illegal methods are getting more popular to some extent," he explained.
Hellman pointed out several priorities for Estonia judging from the survey. Those are promotion of further reforms in civil service and public finance issues and development of a strong partnership with civil society.
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